2 Maccabees 5:15-27

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Pillage of the Temple

¹⁵ Not content with this, Antiochus^[a] dared to enter the most holy temple in all the world, guided by Menelaus, who had become a traitor both to the laws and to his country.^{(A) 16} He took the holy vessels with his polluted hands and swept away with profane hands the votive offerings that other kings had made to enhance the glory and honor of the place.^{(B) 17} Antiochus was elated in spirit and did not perceive that the Lord was angered for a little while because of the sins of those who lived in the city and that this was the reason he was disregarding the holy place.^{(C) 18} But if it had not happened that they were involved in many sins, this man would have been flogged and turned back from his rash act as soon as he came forward, just as Heliodorus had been, whom King Seleucus sent to inspect the treasury.^{(D) 19} But the Lord did not choose the nation for the sake of the holy place but the place for the sake of the nation.^{(E) 20} Therefore the place itself shared in the misfortunes that befell the nation and afterward participated in its benefits, and what was forsaken in the wrath of the Almighty was restored again in all its glory when the great Lord became reconciled.^(F)

²¹ So Antiochus carried off eighteen hundred talents from the temple and hurried away to Antioch, thinking in his arrogance that he could sail on the land and walk on the sea, because his mind was elated.^{(G) 22} He left governors to oppress the people: at Jerusalem, Philip, by birth a Phrygian and in character more barbarous than the man who appointed him;^{(H) 23} and at Gerizim, Andronicus; and besides these Menelaus, who lorded it over his compatriots worse than the others did. In his malice toward the Jewish citizens,^{[b](I) 24} Antiochus^[c] sent Apollonius, the captain of the Mysians, with an army of twenty-two thousand and commanded him to kill all the grown men and to sell the women and boys as slaves.^{(J) 25} When this man arrived in Jerusalem, he pretended to be peaceably disposed and waited until the holy Sabbath day; then, finding the Jews not at work, he ordered his troops to parade under arms. ²⁶ He put to the sword all those who came out to see them, then rushed into the city with his armed warriors and killed great numbers of people.

²⁷ But Judas Maccabeus, with about nine others, got away to the wilderness and kept himself and his companions alive in the mountains as wild animals do; they continued to live on what grew wild, so that they might not share in the defilement.^(K)